A public apology to the guys who picked Owen Daniels in the 5th round

When my friends Oscar and Ben chose Owen Daniels with the 48th pick overall in our fantasy football draft, my first response was to clutch my knee and wince. “OwenDaniels” is one of those words that causes a reflexive action — like a widow who instinctively crosses herself when she hears a dead husband’s name.

My second response was to laugh/make fun of them. Daniels had played sparingly over the previous three seasons, nursing a pestilence of ailments, most notably a catastrophic knee injury that ended his season in 2009. Even with a healthy preseason, I thought he would go in the 10th or 11th round.

Owen Daniels in the 5th was such a stretch, that I designed my annual fantasy football draft recap on The Big Event around the apparent blunder. Below are the final results of the poll I conducted surrounding the Daniels pick, where SFGate readers continued to pile on.

Which was the most suspect pick in the 2012 Dumas League fantasy football draft?

The Owen Daniels-in-the-5th-round pick became a starting point for criticism of Oscar and Ben’s entire draft in the SFGate comments. Here’s a sample …

Let me know if you need help with your own public apology, ubiquitizm.

Daniels is currently the 5th best tight end in our league, and has scored a touchdown in five of his last six games. Not only has he turned out to be worthy of that pick, but the House of Fouts drafted Tony Gonzalez in the 7th. They’ve been playing both tight ends (Daniels as the flex) and are currently tied for 3th place in our league.

I can’t believe anyone other that Oscar, Ben and possibly Owen Daniels are reading this far. But that’s OK. Earlier in the season, I promised a public apology if Daniels was in the Top 5 fantasy tight ends at the halfway point of the season. I waited until Week 9, because Daniels was on a bye during Week 8.

To Ben and Oscar: My apologies for publicly making fun of your Owen Daniels pick. I can now see that it was, if not genius, 100 percent sound. Nice job. Next year when you pick Philip Rivers in the 4th round, while everyone else is making fun of you, I promise to shut my @#$%ing mouth and grab you each a beer.

To Owen Daniels: Sorry for questioning your abilities. Clearly whatever bionic knee or cadaver ACL that you installed is working now, and God bless for that. From now on when I hear your name during a fantasy football draft, instead of wincing and grabbing my knee, I’ll donate $20 to the Owens Daniels’ Catching Dreams Foundation. (Here’s the web site. Not sure that apostrophe was necessary …) Best of luck to you during the remainder of the season.

Sorry for this break in your normal The Big Event programming. We’ll return to old pictures of “Star Wars” fans on Monday …

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder/editor of The Big Event. He takes requests. Contact him at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com. Follow him on Twitter @peterhartlaub. Follow The Big Event on Facebook.